Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addisonwas an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth1 May 1672
husband lying emergencies
Husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency.
marriage husband giving
Good Nature, and Evenness of Temper, will give you an easie Companion for Life; Vertue and good Sense, an agreeable Friend; Love and Constancy, a good Wife or Husband. Where we meet one Person with all these Accomplishments, we find an Hundred without any one of them.
husband lying party
Ladies are always of great use to the party they espouse, and never fail to win over numbers to it. Lovers, according to Sir William Petty's computation, make at least the third part of sensible men of the British nation; and it has been an uncontroverted maxim in all ages, that though a husband is sometimes a stubborn sort of a creature, a lover is always at the devotion of his mistress. By this means, it lies in the power of every fine woman, to secure at least half a dozen able-bodied men to his Majesty's service.
husband night men
Every wife ought to answer for her man. If the husband be engaged in a seditious club, or drinks mysterious healths, or be frugal of his candles on a rejoicing night, let her look to him and keep him out of harm's way; or the world will be apt to say, she has a mind to be a widow before her time. She ought, in such cases, to exert the authority of the curtain lecture; and if she finds him of a rebellious disposition, to tame him, as they do birds of prey, by dinning him in the ears all night long.
creatures perverse
These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world.
consider figure man pray republic
Pray consider what a figure a man would make in the republic of letters.
becomes extricate mind till unable water
Our disputants put me in mind of the scuttle fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him, till he becomes invisible.
blue firmament great original shining
The spacious firmament on high, / And all the blue ethereal sky, / And spangled heavens, a shining frame, / Their great Original proclaim.
conversation himself less man method provided requisite talk understood
Method is not less requisite in conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood
both happiness happy love marriage pleasures scene
Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness and of our miseries. A marriage of love is pleasant, of interest, easy, and where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and,
enemy happiness noise retired true
True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise
dividing doubling friendship friends-or-friendship improves
Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.
attacking generally good human laugh men ridicule virtue
Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.
active best itself learning looked man parts qualify virtue
Learning is pedantry, wit, impertinence, virtue itself looked like weakness, and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice.